Media urged to educate public on vaccination
The media have been called upon to help educate the public on the importance of vaccination and immunisation.
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This will help the general public to better understand and appreciate the crucial role of vaccines in healthcare delivery as they have been instrumental in helping to combat various diseases over centuries.
At a sensitisation workshop on vaccines for media editors in Accra last Friday, the Manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Amposa-Achiano described as unfortunate the hesitancy by some in taking the COVID-19 vaccines, a situation he blamed on misconceptions and misinformation with no scientific basis.
“Vaccines have been instrumental in protecting human lives for centuries, but they are victims of their success.
“Once people take a vaccine and they are not affected by the disease, they tend to attribute the vaccine as the cause of any other thing that affects them during the time they took the vaccines, irrespective of the fact that the vaccine was not responsible for such things,” he said.
The workshop, known as the “Media Engagement Project on Vaccine Uptake in Ghana: Editors Forum,” brought together health experts and editors from various media organisations across the country.
It was organised by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) in partnership with the Ghana Health Service and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Media role
Dr Amposa-Achiano said the media as the gateway and gatekeeper of information to the public had a duty to educate the public by providing accurate information on vaccines to persuade people not to accept false and unproven information regarding vaccines.
Such education, he said, would help combat vaccine hesitancy, especially in adults as was the case with the COVID-19 vaccines.
“In Ghana, we do not have serious issues with hesitancy with it comes to children immunisation and vaccination.
The problem is with the adults.
We can work hard to combat this through massive public education.
“Sometimes when hesitancy starts around adult vaccination, it can trickle to childhood vaccination and that is why we want to be upfront before it becomes a problem,” he added.
The President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Albert Dwumfour, said vaccine hesitancy was a challenge that had the potential to derail efforts by the government and other stakeholders to curtail public health emergencies and crises.
He, therefore, urged media practitioners to join the campaign to combat issues of vaccine hesitancy, while they also highlighted challenges associated with vaccinations and immunisation for appropriate action from authorities.
“The media has the potential to combat vaccine hesitancy by leveraging the influence we wield to dispel the myth surrounding vaccine hesitancy.
We must do this in light of the current environmental conditions,’ he said.
Project
The Executive Secretary of the AMMREN, Dr Charity Binka, said the project was meant to encourage editors to use their media platforms to educate the public on vaccines.
The project, she said, would also include programmes in the media for health experts to educate the public on the need to vaccinate and the important role of vaccines.
“Initially, the focus was on COVID-19 vaccines but we decided to expand it to cover all vaccines administered in the country after we collaborated with the Ghana Health Service,’ she added.
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